"Thinking big, thinking forward..."

This week has really helped drive home the importance of thinking big, thinking forward, and facilitating the opportunity for those I serve in leadership to do the same. Pat Bassett’s presentations on “the big shifts in making education more current” gave some great resources and ideas for the tools and practices that I should be looking to use in making the necessary big shifts at my school, many of which are already being discussed and experimented with at our school. What I valued most from my time with Pat however, was our discussion on how to create the conditions for successfully making these shifts. I have gained a deeper understanding of how to both guide and care for a diverse team of personalities in the process of bringing about meaningful and lasting change.

Complementary to this goal has been this morning’s message from Hans Mundahl’s workshop, which emphasized the absolute need to designate time, space and resources to the process of thinking big and thinking forward. As others did, Hans emphasized the importance of the tension between urgent matters and important ones. In itself, this is nothing new. But what I am finding enlightening is the depth with which we’ve been exploring an institution’s potential to thrive when important matters are more appropriately prioritized over urgent ones. For me this has made the important matters (like the “big shifts” we need to make) much more urgent! I am eager to bringing these principles before my school, and working to make them fundamental to how we move forward in our evolutionary process.